Tour: In Transit by Kathleen Gerard

IN TRANSIT is a woman-in-jeopardy story, a post 9-11 novel, set in and around the NY-Metro Area. What starts out as a rather naive quest for a 22 year-old "Jersey Girl" with innocent intentions of becoming an NYPD cop and "marrying a man in uniform," snowballs into something much more harrowing and ominous. The plot is rooted in the ordinary lives of NYPD career cops, the choices they make (or don't make), and depicts how their fates are often determined by people who hold secrets as dark and as labyrinth-like as the New York City Subway System.


 
Rita works as  waitress and really isn't making any headway in her life.  After a mall psychic tells her she is to marry a man in uniform and is destined for something more, Rita decides to apply as a police officer in New York City.  She is hired, much to her surprise, but the training is grueling.  She is placed as an intransit officer, someone who monitors the trains.   She knows she has a secret admirer and assumes it is handsome Billy Quinn.

The two have a whirlwind relationship and quickly marry, much to the dismay of some of Rita's coworkers.  After they are married, he treats her differently.  He becomes jealous and before long, Internal Affairs get involved.  Billy has been leading a double life, and when Rita's partner is killed, Billy turns on her.  She files for divorce, hoping that it will help alleviate the rumors surrounding her and Billy and make him leave her alone.  But Rita will need the help of her 'real" secret admirer to help her get her life back on track.

In Transit is a great police procedural with light tones of romance.  The character development is great and the pace doesn't slow down.  I really enjoyed the character of Rita, going from a wide-eyed innocent to a blissfully happily married woman to someone scared to death and then trying to find her way back to 'normal'.  Gergard does it with aplomb.  Suspenseful and compelling, In Transit is a thrilling read!

Kathleen Gerard writes across genres. Her fiction has been awarded The Perillo Prize, The Eric Hoffer Prose Award and was nominated for Best New American Voices, all national prizes in literature. Her prose and poetry have been widely published in magazines, literary journals, anthologies and broadcast on National Public Radio (NPR). Several of her plays have been staged and performed regionally and off-Broadway.


Kathleen on Twitter
http://intransit-thenovel.blogspot.com/

NEXT TOUR STOP: Once Upon a Twilight - June 18th

Thank you to Tribute Books for my complimentary review copy.  All thoughts and opinions are expressly my own.